In the Sengoku era the school served a second warrior court: the Later Hōjō at Odawara, whose patronage kept the Tsunahiro line forging hitatsura for the uchigatana age until the castle fell to Hideyoshi in 1590.
(Showa 41 Kicho Token) (Honbu Shinsa) It has arrived, it has arrived—though mumei, a tanto by Muramasa has appeared. This is the appearance of a work certified as Mumei Muramasa by Kicho Token (we have confirmed with the Association that the certificate matches the Honbu records). The famous Saigo Takamori particularly cherished Muramasa blades with the aim of overthrowing the Tokugawa Shogunate. This tanto, popular as Sengo Muramasa in Touken Ranbu, may be a work where the Muramasa mei was erased in later generations out of deference to the Tokugawa family; it is a long-awaited piece for "Touken Joshi" (sword girls). This tanto is a precious work judged as Muramasa, despite being mumei, and is world-famous under the name of the "Yoto" (妖刀 - cursed blade). Regarding the sugata of this tanto, the mune is shin-no-mitsumune, with a wide moto-mihaba and a slight difference from the saki-mihaba, showing a sharp hira-zukuri tanto form with sori. The nakago exhibits the tanago-hara shape known as Muramasa-nakago. The jigane is itame-hada mixed with mokume-hada. The hamon is nioi-deki with nie, featuring matching patterns on the omote and ura; it begins with koshi-ba at the moto, followed by gunome-ba, o-gunome-ba, o-gunome-ba, gunome-ba, and o-gunome-ba, firing a truly magnificent and spirited Muramasa blade. Muramasa was a swordsmith from Ise in Mie Prefecture. Because his blades were said to bring misfortune to the Tokugawa family, many were made mumei during the Edo period out of deference to the Tokugawa. While the Tokugawa Shogunate particularly loathed these works, it is a very famous story that Prince Arisugawa, when he became the Commander-in-Chief of the Expeditionary Force to the East during the Boshin War, carried a Muramasa blade to signify the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Dr. Sato Kanzan, who wrote the sayagaki, is a famous appraiser who co-founded the Nihon Bijutsu Token Hozon Kyokai (NBTHK) alongside Dr. Honma Kunzan. The koshirae is a stylish aikuchi-koshirae, which adds further elegance to this Muramasa tanto. This mumei Muramasa tanto has been cherished for generations by an old family, but as they have grown old, we have been entrusted to pass it on at a low price to someone who will treasure it. If it were to receive Tokubetsu Hozon Token papers, it would be worth over 5 million yen, but as it currently holds the Honbu Shinsa Kicho Token certification as Mumei Muramasa, please fully understand its current status as Kicho Token. We are offering it at a specially discounted price for those who absolutely desire a work by Muramasa even if it is mumei. Although it is mumei, no matter from where you view it, it is a tanto that follows all the okite (conventions) of Muramasa. Please enjoy it.
Certificate reading — 銘 村正
NihontoWatchmumei · Koto · nagasa 24.8cm · sori 0.2cm
Our records attribute this piece to Muramasa School, the line of Muramasa, a name with Jūyō-designated work, and we couldn’t find current papers for it. Treat the attribution as unproven until papers say otherwise. Its older green papers are largely disavowed by the NBTHK today. — Hoshi Ask me first
Soshu-den · Ise
5 pieces on the market now
Kuwana, in Ise Province, gave the Sengo line its base, and from there the Muramasa (村正) name carried the work of late-Muromachi Ise into the Sengoku decades. The oldest extant date in the whole line is Bunki 1 (1501), carried by a katana signed "Seshu Kuwana-ju Uemon-no-jo Fujiwara Muramasa saku"[[c:1]]; from that anchor the prevailing scheme reads the Bunki pieces as the first generation, the Tenbun as the second, and the Tensho as the third, with the second master held the most skillful and most prolific of the three. The published sources set aside the popular tale that the founder studied under Masamune, calling it an unfounded tradition; the line begins instead near the close of the Muromachi period. Its hand shares common features with Mino, Shimada, and Sue-Soshu, and resembles Heianjo Nagayoshi of Kyoto so closely that the judges presume some relationship between the two, while a likeness to the Shimada smiths and to the Sue-Seki Kanesada is noted as a thing that can confuse a first reading. From the workshop issued the disciples Masashige (正重) and Masazane (正眞), filed by tradition as students of the shodai, who carried the manner forward alongside the Muramasa name itself. The feature the commentary names again and again as the school's own is the matched temper: the hamon on omote and ura align to one mirror-image pattern (omote-ura soroi), and the valleys of the midare press in toward the cutting edge. To this the masters add box-shaped elements (hako-midare), a gunome and notare base mixed with compound gunome, togariba, and yamagata figures, the nioiguchi drawn tight with patchy ko-nie in mura, and sunagashi running frequently; the boshi runs midare-komi or sugu to a ko-maru, often swept with hakikake. The forms that carry it are the wide hira-zukuri tanto and sunnobi ko-wakizashi with mitsu-mune, and the short, strongly saki-zori uchigatana; the jigane is itame tending to stand, mixed with flowing and masame-inclined grain, the steel dark at times and showing the whitish shirake cast the descriptions repeatedly note. Beneath sits the tanago-bara nakago, the fish-belly swelling that grows pronounced from the second generation, cut with a thick-chisel two-character mei.
The successors diverge by proportion rather than trick: Masashige opens the same vocabulary out, his grain standing more openly and his o-gunome and nie carried further; Masazane draws it in, holding box teeth low at the koshimoto under a calm suguha, his jihada closing tighter than his fellow pupil's. Beside the flamboyant rule each smith keeps a quiet register, tanto in suguha aimed at the Rai manner, and an occasional reach toward hitatsura with tobiyaki and muneyaki, never the rule of the work. To kantei the school, the matched faces are the first tell: the aligned omote and ura, the box figures, the valleys pressing to the edge, the tight nioiguchi with its patchy nie, and the tanago-bara nakago under the thick mei part Muramasa from the Mino, Shimada, and Heianjo hands it otherwise resembles. Within the line the nakago-mune decides: cut angular on Muramasa, it rounds out fleshily on Masashige, while Masazane is told from Masashige by his tighter steel. The Sengo reputation for cutting sharpness, with the midare valleys driven toward the ha, drew the Tokugawa legend that the blades brought calamity on the house; the sources handle it as recorded fact, noting that from the Edo period many signatures were effaced for fear of the name, so that signed katana in particular grew comparatively rare, and that one of Masazane's katana was cut "Yamashiro Province Masazane" as a deliberate screen for a daimyo recipient. Provenance runs through private and daimyo hands rather than institutional holdings: a first-generation wakizashi transmitted as a possession of Oda Nobunaga, a Masazane descended in the Mizuno and Tosa Yamauchi houses, a Lotus Sutra katana held in the Nabeshima line. The Nichiren devotion read off some blades, the title Myoho-renge-kyo cut into the steel, ties the work to its Ise region. A signed, ubu Sengo blade of secure date and matched temper comes to notice only from time to time, the legend that thinned the signatures adding to the call for those that remain. Learn more →
| Smith | Era | Designated |
|---|---|---|
| Muramasa村正 | 1521-1528 | 41 |
| Muramasa村正 | 1501-1521 | 17 |
| Masashige正重 | 1521-1528 | 12 |
| Masazane正眞 | 1501-1504 | 4 |
| Toshimasa俊正 | 1532-1555 | 0 |
Sōshū in the Muromachi period
In the Sengoku era the school served a second warrior court: the Later Hōjō at Odawara, whose patronage kept the Tsunahiro line forging hitatsura for the uchigatana age until the castle fell to Hideyoshi in 1590.
This work carries older NBTHK “Kichō”-era papers, which the NBTHK no longer issues and largely disavows today. To confirm the attribution, submission to an official Japanese examination body (such as the NBTHK or NTHK) for modern certification could be considered.
For returns due to customer circumstances, the cost is the customer's responsibility. For returns due to our mis-shipment or a defective item, we bear the cost.
¥1,500,000
